Elvis Costello

Though singer-songwriter Elvis Costello rose to fame during the English punk movement in the 1970s, he surpassed the limitations of the genre through his fascination for other musical styles, from Ame...
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Elvis Costello and Steely Dan are to hit the road together. The British rocker will join Donald Fagen and Walter Becker for the extended leg of their Rockabye Gollie Angel Tour, which will begin in July (15) at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado.
The two acts will play 21 dates in a month and close the tour in West Palm Beach, Florida on 12 August (15).

Elvis Costello has branded Kanye West "a bit silly" over his Grammy Awards stunt. The British rocker has questioned the rapper's behaviour after he took to the stage at the event in Los Angeles on Sunday (08Feb15) as Beck collected his prize for Album of the Year.
West later insisted Beyonce should have been given the award instead, but Costello tells New York Post gossip column Page Six, "What is it exactly that he does?... We all want Beyonce to win everything. Why wouldn't we? Isn't she great? But she didn't win this thing, so it's kind of a bit silly to say she should've won it... It's good he sticks up for his pals, but I think the gentleman who won it... did win it. I don't think it was a fix!"
West was slammed in 2009 for storming the stage at the MTV Video Music Awards and calling for Beyonce to be given the best female video award as it was handed to Taylor Swift.

New Year's Eve always proves to be the most stressful night of the entire year. Between deciding who to spend this monstrously important evening with, formulating a plan for an actual activity, and, someone help us, what to wear, the night ends up being destroyed by stress before it even begins. In our experience, the pain of preparation outweighs the fun we have, so this year, we're decidedly ringing in 2015 with a bottle of wine and movies about people having a worse time than we are.
Everyone on board the Poseidon (The Poseidon Adventure &amp; Poseidon)
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No matter what your NYE plans are, they will not end as disastrously as these people's. They board a luxury ocean liner heading across the Atlantic Ocean that encounters a rogue wave, capsizing the ship. Water floods through the windows, and most of the ship's passengers die in the fabulous ballroom where they were partying just moments ago. We bet that $500 open bar is looking pretty good right about now.
Michelle Tanner (Full House)
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Queen of Speaking Truths, Michelle Tanner is understandably frustrated as she tries to grasp the appeal of this blasted holiday. Stay up way past your bedtime just to feel alone and make out with your dog? Whhhhyyyy?????
Bridget Jones (Bridget Jones's Diary)
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Bridget may not be having a worse holiday than you are, but she's at least having one that's just as bad. Her booze-soaked Celine-Dion-singing evening is exactly how we envision our New Year's Eve going down (don't judge!), and for that, we love her. Plus, when your resolution involves losing 20 pounds (obviously), properly discarding last night's panties, and avoiding romantic attachments to alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobics, peeping toms, megalomaniacs, emotional fuckwits, or perverts...you're an ideal NYE BFF.
This sledge hammer (Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest)
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Though not technically a person, we still would not trade places with this construction tool under any circumstances imaginable. Only Jenny McCarthy could make us envy the unfortunate sledge hammer Miley licked.
"Little" Bill Thompson (Boogie Nights)
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William H. Macy's character in Paul Thomas Anderson's Golden Age of Porn drama is often embarrassed by his porn star wife engaging in public sexual acts with other men, usually asking him to just let her do her thing. At a NYE party marking the year 1980, Bill walks in on his wife and her lover, calmly procures a gun, and then shoots both of them before turning the gun on himself. While we may have wanted to "shoot ourselves" from the stress of the night, we think he's having a much worse night than most of us.
Chandler Bing (Friends)
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Your favorite sarcastic Friend, Chandler, is openly desperate where most of us just silently suffer. As midnight rolls around, he so pines for affection and validation that he jumps up and down demanding some action. NYE lesson to be learned: be careful what you wish for.
Ted (Four Rooms)
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Tim Roth plays a hotel bellhop on his first night of work as he navigates through four different stories, directed by Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino. He deals with witches who need his semen (Anders' segment), reluctantly becomes a part of a married couple's hostage fantasy (Rockwell's), is stabbed with a syringe by children he's forced to babysit who set the room on fire before discovering a dead prostitute in the bed (Rodriguez's), and is finally paid to chop off a man's finger (Tarantino's). Needless to say, your night is looking a bit better.
Miranda Hobbes and Carrie Bradshaw (Sex and the City: The Movie)
These usually fabulous ladies had a bummer of a New Year's Eve. After learning that Steve cheated on Miranda and a disaster of a wedding attempt by Carrie and Big, the ladies opted for a depressing night in, each alone (though Miranda was with one of our best friends, Chinese food, while Carrie as with our other bestie, bed). Their nights may start out depressing, but they helped us realize that you're never alone as long as you have a best friend and a fiiiieeerce pajama/mink outfit combo.
Monica (200 Cigarettes)
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Monica is determined to throw an amazing party, but when nobody shows up at first, she becomes upset and a bit desperate. She does the only logical thing a person can do in that scenario: she gets so drunk that she passes out. Everyone ends up coming to her party, including Elvis Costello. She wakes up with a bunch of strangers on her floor and is thrilled, but her night positively sucked, if we do say so ourselves.
The entire cast of New Year's Eve
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No matter what happens on New Year's, at least you didn't star in this awful movie. Just be thankful for that.

Actor Johnny Depp is set to show off his musical talents on a new record based on unfinished Bob Dylan songs. The Alice in Wonderland star visited the Los Angeles' Capitol Studios to watch the recording session for producer T Bone Burnett's Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes, but ended up filling in for Elvis Costello on the guitar for the song Kansas City.
Lost On The River: The New Basement Tapes, which also features Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons and Jim James of My Morning Jacket, is set for release this autumn (14) to coincide with a new documentary called Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued, directed by Sam Jones.
The lyrics come from Dylan's 1967 Basement Tapes sessions.
This isn't the first musical venture for the Depp - the actor is currently working with The Beatles legend Paul McCartney on a secret project with Alice Cooper and Joe Perry, while he has also become a familiar sight at Aerosmith and Willie Nelson concerts after joining them onstage on various occasions.

Rocker Elvis Costello performed a song he wrote in a day on Thursday night (05Jun14) when he stepped in to replace sick Lana Del Rey on America's The Late Show With David Letterman. Costello was working on new tracks when he got the call to perform at the last minute and decided to try out one of the new tunes, The Last Year of My Youth, on the show.
It is not clear why Del Rey pulled out of the show but her European tour dates, which begin next week (13Jun14) are all still scheduled.
The singer, who recently performed at Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's pre-wedding party in France, recently told Fader magazine she has been struggling with a mystery illness for two years.
She says, "(I have this) medical anomaly that doctors couldn't figure out. That's a big part of my life: I just feel really sick a lot of the time and can't figure out why."

Stars including Elvis Costello and Marie Osmond have sketched pictures of houses to raise funds for a U.K. homelessness charity. Bosses at Welsh organisation Llamau left paper and pens in the dressing rooms of stars performing in Cardiff, Wales and asked them to draw an image of their home.
As well as Costello and Osmond, singer Susan Boyle, rockers The Killers and comic Eddie Izzard took part in the initiative. The images will go up for sale at an auction in the city on Tuesday night (03Jun14).
Hugh Russell, fundraising coordinator, says, "It started as an idea two and a half years ago and we've been collecting them ever since.
"Bags with paper and pens were left in dressing rooms in places like the (Cardiff-based venue) Motorpoint Arena and we hoped celebrities might have some spare time before their shows to help us.
"Many of them did leave us sketches - although some are obviously better comedians than artists."

Singer Alison Moyet is adamant her battle with agoraphobia was kickstarted by a disastrous encounter with her hero Elvis Costello. The former Yazoo star has struggled with severe anxiety issues for years, resulting in her spending most of her time hiding from the outside world.
Now she has revealed she felt compelled to cut herself off after making a blunder during a chat with Costello after one of his gigs.
Speaking to Kirsty Young on the U.K.'s BBC Radio 4, she said, "I'd gone to see him (Costello) play in Southend (England) and he'd been brilliant. He'd sung this two-hour set and he was formidable. I absolutely loved it, and there was a party back at (U.K. band) Dr. Feelgood's house that he went to, and I'd been invited too, and there he was and he was lovely.
"He was charming and I wanted to say to him 'you were wonderful' and had all these wonderful descriptions of him. What came out of my mouth was, 'You dragged that out a bit, didn't you?' Once I did that, I just felt, I don't trust myself in polite society."
During the interview, which aired in the U.K. on Sunday (18May14), Moyet also revealed she smashed her gold records with a hammer and asked a shop assistant to delete all her songs from her computer when she took it in for repairs.
She added, "A year ago I took my computer to be mended and just told them to wipe everything without saving anything. That's my whole life - everything, my contacts, everything, my diary, everything gone, my songs, my demos, the lot - because I was really excited about having an empty inbox."

Singer/songwriter Elvis Costello is set to make his headlining debut at New York City's famed Carnegie Hall with two concerts on 24 and 25 June (14). He first performed at the iconic venue in 2001 as a guest of rockers Spinal Tap.

Singer/songwriter Jesse Winchester has lost his battle with bladder cancer at the age of 69. Winchester passed away on Friday (11Apr14) in Virginia.
He was best known for his country songs Yankee Lady, Biloxi, Mississippi You're on My Mind and The Brand New Tennessee Waltz, which went on to be covered by singers including George Strait and Tim Hardin.
Winchester was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 2007.
In 2012, musicians Elvis Costello, Jimmy Buffett and Rosanne Cash collaborated on a tribute album titled Quiet About It, which featured versions of his songs.

Comedy Central
We've just learned that Comedy Central's resident satirist Stephen Colbert will be inheriting CBS's The Late Show once David Letterman takes his final bow in 2015, but almost as important as the show's new host is the new band leader. Colbert has made a lot of musically gifted friends in his time at Comedy Central, but which ones would make a good fit once the comedian transfers his talents to late night?
Ed HelmsChemistry is the name of the game when it comes to a good host/band leader dynamic. Thankfully, Ed Helms and Colbert spent years working together in the early days of The Daily Show, and have shown a nice easy comedic flow back and forth. They're clearly still pals, considering the fact that Colbert made a guest appearance as Helms' college buddy on the final season of The Office. There's also the fact that Helms is a talented multi-instrumentalist.
Elvis CostelloWhile this one may be a bit of a stretch, the connection between the two is more than tenuous. Colbert has a great admiration for Costello, and the two have become good friends thanks to Colbert's show. Costello even sang a duet with Steven during his 2008 Comedy Central special A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All! If that wasn't enough, there's the simple fact that Elvis Costello is just really cool. Not run of the mill cool, but old school cool. He's smooth, and has a big presence that won't get drowned out by Colbert's antics.
James MurphyJames Murphy, the former face of the now defunct LCD Soundsystem, eats, sleeps, and breaths New York, so it would be no problem keeping him in town to do the show. He's also has a lot of time on his hands now that LCD Soundsystem is done and gone. If all that wasn't enough, Murphy chose the Colbert Report for his band's final television appearance.
The NationalThese Brooklyn-based rockers would only be a short train ride away from Stephen's new digs at CBS. They've also sang a song on The Colbert Report with the host before, so the two entities are already well acquainted with each other. Plus, The National seems to really get a kick out of adding their moody brand of rock to pop to pop culture. They've created a haunting version of "The Rains of Castamere" for Game of Thrones, and have even covered songs from Bob's Burgers of all places.
Steve CarellBoth Carell and Colbert are Daily Show alums, and the duo used to host the recurring segment "Even Steven" where they debated topics as irrationally as possible. Beyond the comedy connection, Steve Carell does play his fair share of instruments, though they're not your typical late night fare. You'd be surprised to learn that Carell can play the baritone horn and the fife. Now, are we really going to deprive the world its only chance of having a late night band being led by a fife player? I think not.
Daft PunkRight?
Riiight?
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Summary

Though singer-songwriter Elvis Costello rose to fame during the English punk movement in the 1970s, he surpassed the limitations of the genre through his fascination for other musical styles, from American country and blues to reggae, jazz and classical composition, as well as his highly literate, often biting lyrics. Costello's early work with his crack backing band, the Attractions, bristled with passion and venom on songs like "Oliver's Army," "Watching the Detectives" and "Pump It Up," but he also showed an exceptional capacity for quieter material, displaying a jazzman's delivery on songs like "Alison" and "Almost Blue." Costello's fortunes rose and fell during the 1980s and 1990s as he explored various genres and sounds, but by the new millennium, his body of work was so vast and his adventurous spirit so well-loved that his experiments were welcomed by a dedicated audience of listeners. To that end, he released albums of country, folk, jazz and even orchestral works, while still remaining true to his rock-n-roll roots, all of which underscored his status as one of popular music's most accomplished and protean talents.